


It's Called Team Building

by AndreaChristoph



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Drunken Flirting, F/M, Fluff, Strip Games, Trivial Pursuit, garcy, this whole thing is a weak excuse to have hot people strip and make out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29269221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaChristoph/pseuds/AndreaChristoph
Summary: An overconfident and slightly tipsy Lucy turns an innocent game night awry when she suggests upping the stakes.  In her defense, it seemed like a good idea at the time, or at least right up until she was left standing in her skivvies opposite a shirtless Flynn.Fluff without plot, set in vague post-Chinatown universe.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	It's Called Team Building

**Author's Note:**

> I think there was once a prompt mentioned of "strip game night" or the idea came up somehow and anyway this was the result that I started over a year ago and only just finished. GOOD TIMES. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It started innocently enough.

Denise’s new safehouse - a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere - was certainly more interesting than their bunker had been. If nothing else, they could wander outside for brief periods of time, and there were enough rooms in the house that they could actually relax in shared spaces without being shoulder-to-shoulder constantly.

On this particular day, however, it was noticeably quiet around the house. Jiya and Rufus were busy in the barn-turned-garage, tweaking the ship’s programming with occasional road trips to the nearby bumpkin backwater town (decked out in sunglasses and ballcaps, naturally). Typically they were able to take one of the nameless guards who were on steady rotation with them, but this particular Sunday they’d been forced to take Wyatt with them as a guard. He’d been going stir crazy and so was only too eager to drive into town and accompany them shopping, though the idea of leaving Lucy and Flynn alone (or mostly alone, seeing as Connor was in and out of the house all day) had made him scowl deeply as he followed them out to the beat-up Ford truck that was serving as the team vehicle.

This left only Lucy and Flynn to wander the house, aimlessly searching for things to do. As there wasn’t any cell service this far into the country, both of them had taken to reading the books in the vast library collection, typically retreating to their own rooms to do so. It had become a silent competition of sorts, as they replaced their finished books on separate shelves to unspokenly keep track of who was burning through them faster. It was silly and pointless, but Lucy found herself smiling each time she entered the library and saw a new book on Flynn’s ‘side’, and felt a small triumph each time she placed a book down on her own.

In the early evening, she looked up from her copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales (she’d branched into fiction, seeing as her life was a walking history book nowadays) when the sound of the truck’s engine grew louder and cut off just outside the kitchen window. She set her book face-down on the table and stood, but wasn’t able to see much in the twilight - three figures carrying armloads of things to the barn. She sat once more and was just lifting her book again when the back door opened and the three of them filed in, apparently mid-argument. 

“It’s called team building. And research.”

“How is a board game either of those things?” Wyatt fired back at Jiya, rolling his eyes. 

Lucy continued to pretend she was reading her book but found the discussion a bit too distracting to actually absorb any of the words, and so just silently listened instead.

“Um, friendly competition? Knowledge building? Wouldn’t you like to go on a mission where you weren’t totally screwed if Lucy was caught?”

“Not like that hasn’t happened before-”

Jiya huffed and slammed the board game box down on the table hard enough for the pieces to rattle, making Lucy jump. “Fine, Wyatt, if you don’t want to participate, don’t. But we’re going to play. Right, Lucy?”

She looked up from her book to see all three of them staring her down. “Uh.” She quickly looked down at the game box, hunting for the context of why Jiya thought she’d agree with them, only to see the words _Trivial Pursuit_ on the side - _hell yes_. They had no idea what they were getting into with that one. “Oh, I am _absolutely_ playing.”

“Not only am I not surprised,” Rufus said, giving Jiya a knowing look, “I also think you should have a handicap in this because it is _so_ not fair-”

“There are science questions in there too,” Lucy quickly pointed out, lifting the lid off the box while Jiya busied herself clearing the table and tracking down chairs. “This is hardly a fair fight in general.”

“Teams, then?” Connor stepped into the kitchen from the back door, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. They hadn’t seen him for most of the day, as their generator had broken down in the early afternoon while the rest of the team was in town, and he’d proclaimed he’d have it fixed singlehandedly by the time they returned. He slipped past the crowd of people in the tiny kitchen to wash his hands at the sink, adding lightly, “And no, Jiya and Rufus can’t be on the same team.”

“Hey!” Rufus protested immediately. “We come from very different scientific backgrounds, I’ll have you know.”

“Having hired the both of you, I’m well aware of what your skills are, and between you all the gaps are covered. Hardly fair.” Connor dried his hands on a clean towel hanging below the sink, then opened the fridge and retrieved an armful of beers that he sat down one-per-chair on the table. “Here is my proposal: evenly paired teams, with Lucy’s handicap being a one-person team.”

“That doesn’t sound very fair,” Lucy was quick to point out, though she knew deep down it didn’t matter either way. There had never been a game of Trivial Pursuit that she hadn’t won by a landslide. Somehow, she suspected Connor was well aware of that fact.

“To even it out overall,” he continued, a slight smirk on his face, “we will also be drinking any time Lucy gets a question wrong, while she will drink when we get a question right.”

Oh. Oh, dear. She’d never been particularly great with drinking games, primarily because she was such a lightweight - not to mention her desire to win was now also wrestling with her desire to get the rest of the team utterly shitfaced.

“Rufus with Wyatt and me with Jiya, then.” Connor handed Jiya a beer as they took a seat together, while Wyatt and Rufus commandeered the other side of the table to do the same, leaving Lucy seated alone at the head of the table.

Once they were all ready to go with their game pieces picked out, they did rock paper scissors to decide who went first, with Wyatt triumphantly winning best of three. Team Wufus (as they had quickly dubbed themselves...or more accurately, Rufus had dubbed them) continued on their lucky streak as they had a great first roll, and landed on the symbol for a sports question. Lucy held out her hand for them to pass her the box of questions and carefully chose a card from the stack with a conspiratorial glance in their direction.

“In what sport are you not allowed to wear white?”

Rufus looked over at Wyatt, clearly drawing a blank, but Wyatt looked back at her, a smug grin on his face. 

“Ping pong.”

Lucy flipped the card - _table tennis_. “Correct.”

“How the hell did you know that?” Rufus asked him, his voice a mix of impressed and confused.

Wyatt shrugged. “Didn’t have a lot of TV channels in rural Texas.”

Lucy was next to take her turn (pausing, of course, to take a swig of the beer before her), and grinned as she managed to roll the correct number to land on a history space. 

Jiya snatched the cards from her and pulled one out to read, then placed it back in the box. “Too easy.” 

“Hey, there was nothing said about my questions having to be harder!”

Jiya gave her an unimpressed look. “Somehow I think _Who was the first US president_ would insult your intelligence.”

Ah. Fair point. “Fine, pick another.”

Jiya took her time picking one at random from the middle of the box, showed it to Connor, who nodded his assent. “What did Joseph Priestley discover in 1774?”

Lucy didn’t miss a beat. “Oxygen.”

“How did you..?!” Jiya tossed the card down on the table in mock disgust. “This game is rigged.”

A few more rounds continued, with Lucy’s head growing steadily fuzzier as her opponents managed to guess correctly the majority of the time. This, in turn, led to her own answers becoming more questionable, which had the obvious effect of making the rest of their answers questionable. After 45 minutes of this song and dance, Lucy had managed to win two pie pieces, as had Team M&M (Mason and Marri, a name that was vastly preferable to Rufus’s alternative suggestion of ‘Jonnor’).

Lucy was thinking through the answer to a question when they heard soft footsteps descending the stairs, and Flynn appeared a few moments later, clearly curious of what was causing all the noise on the ground floor.

When he saw the game laid out before them (along with several empty beer bottles), he arched an eyebrow. “This is what the important supply run was all about?”

“No,” Rufus fired back, rolling his eyes. “This was just a treat for all the hard work we’ve been doing.” He paused, then added, “No thanks to you.”

“I’m not sure I’d call drunk trivia with this group a ‘treat’.” Despite his words, Flynn seated himself at the table opposite Lucy. “What are the rules, then?”

“You actually want to play?” Jiya said, taken off guard. Clearly, the entire group had assumed (Lucy included) that Flynn would feel himself above such frivolous pursuits and would much rather read alone in his room. Their enemy-turned-ally continued to surprise them every day, it seemed.

“Why not. If I start another book this late I’m liable to get a migraine, so why not get the same result while having a drink?”

(Ever perceptive to the nuances of Flynn’s expressions, Lucy could see the unspoken words in his eyes, the thing he’d never admit to any of them - he was feeling lonely.)

“We’re in the middle of a game,” Wyatt protested, his cheeks just a smidge redder in color than usual, more so thanks to the beer than to his nemesis joining them. “Not to mention we’re even in teams already-”

“Lucy doesn’t appear to be on one,” Flynn pointed out, nodding in her direction.

Rufus snorted. “Yeah, because she’s basically _Einstein_ at this game.”

“Fine. No team then.” Flynn reached out to pick up the remaining red game piece and plopped it into the center of the board. “Not like the rest of you are that far ahead, to begin with.”

“Are you...sure?” Connor asked him, clearly tiptoeing around the implication of the question - _Are you sure you’re smart enough to hold your own_? 

Flynn shrugged. “I’ll take my chances.”

“What about the booze?” Jiya asked as she polished off the last sip of her apple cider. “We’ve all got a head start on you. Not remotely fair.”

Again Flynn arched an eyebrow, then reached over to snatch the whiskey bottle that was sitting half-empty in front of Connor, and took a long swig of it. When he finally set it back down on the table - now a quarter of the way to empty - he couldn’t help the sharp hiss that escaped his mouth as the ample amount of alcohol all at once burned his throat on the way down. 

“That was a 35-year aged bottle,” Connor said in abject horror, to which Lucy could no longer keep it together, and her sudden snort of laughter took them all by surprise. She quickly coughed to hide it as she attempted to compose herself, but still managed to briefly catch Flynn’s eye while the others were still staring her way - the look on his face was one of warm affection with a dash of being pleased with himself.

Another half-hour into the game and they were all dismayed to find that Flynn was evidently smarter than expected, whether or not he had a whiskey-addled brain (not that it seemed to have had much effect on his overall demeanor, as he simply sat back and watched quietly in between turns). When he ended up neck-in-neck with Lucy at 4 pie pieces, she felt her competitive streak taking over against her will, and would occasionally make soft derisive noises when he got a question wrong (still few and far between, damn him) in an attempt to psych him out. As the rest of the group fell victim to their low levels of alcohol tolerance, she found herself sobering up further, at least enough to maintain her tenuous lead despite the efforts of her opponents.

As Rufus read a question aloud for Flynn to answer, he was interrupted by a loud snore, followed by Jiya lifting her head from the table as she started, clearly now halfway to passing out. She looked at each of them in turn through half-lidded eyes, the hair on the right side of her head still plastered against her face.

“I think it may be time for our team to bow out,” Connor said graciously, his own words just barely slurred. “At my age, a hangover is akin to living death, and my partner has clearly already tapped out.”

“Do we just end the game, then?” Rufus asked, to which Wyatt scoffed.

“Come on, man, we’re all neck in neck, we can’t give up now.” He leaned in closer to Rufus. “Can you imagine how delicious it would be holding this victory over Lucy’s head for months to come?”

Rufus paused to consider this, then nodded. “Have a good sleep, honey, don’t wait up,” he said lightly as Connor helped a sleepy Jiya to her feet and toward the stairs. The remaining four looked back at each other with a competitive glint in each of their eyes.

“Let's make this interesting, shall we?” Lucy said, cracking her knuckles in turn. “The drinks are clearly having no effect on Flynn.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s having _no_ effect,” he said, leaning back in his chair casually. “But what do you suggest, professor?”

Lucy considered for a moment, then grinned wickedly.

“Strip.”

That got the attention of all three men, who sat up straighter to shift awkwardly in their chairs.

“All of us?” Rufus practically squeaked, gathering the lapels of his unzipped hoodie around himself tighter.

Lucy shrugged. “You a chicken, Carlin?”

“I’ll take that bet,” Wyatt piped up, to which Rufus smacked him lightly in the shoulder.

“Of course _you_ will, half this table has already seen each other-” Rufus cut himself off just in time, clearly processing a bit too late what he was saying and how uncomfortable that would make the rest feel. “I...will concede to this new rule, but only if you strip for us, and I’ll drink for us.”

Wyatt chuckled. “Fair enough.”

They all looked over at Flynn, who was back to casually leaning in his chair with one leg crossed over the other and his chin resting on the closed fist of his left hand. For once, Lucy couldn’t read his expression in the least, until he finally smirked and gave them a short nod. 

“This should be entertaining if nothing else.”

Lucy nodded to the empty whiskey glass in front of him. “You need to restock on drinks.”

“Hm? Didn’t you say-”

“We strip if we get a question wrong,” Lucy stated, gesturing to the whole table, “but drink when someone else gets it right.”

“This is seeming more and more like a cheap excuse to get me drunk and naked, Lucy,” Flynn murmured, his smirk widening.

Lucy felt her cheeks burn, her cocky overconfidence failing her for a moment, and while she sputtered in an attempt to find a response to that, Flynn’s smirk turned into a full-blown grin.

“Let's get the game underway before your brain short-circuits, shall we?” He tossed the dice before him in Rufus’s direction while he stood to go to the fridge and retrieve a fresh drink. Lucy couldn’t help watch as he went by, her eyes drifting down his body as she struggled to rid herself of the mental image he had put in her head, and luckily none of the men in the room seemed to notice her wandering gaze when she finally was able to tear it away from Flynn and focus on the game instead.

“Which renaissance artist was strong enough to bend horseshoes by hand?” Lucy read from the card before her, and Team Wufus shared a glance, clearly lost.

“Uh...Michelangelo?” Wyatt hazarded, and when Lucy only smirked in response, he sighed heavily. “Who was it?”

“Da Vinci.”

“No way,” Rufus said, laughing. “That’s...kind of awesome. Can we go on a mission to meet Da Vinci sometime? I feel like I definitely need a photo of swole Leonardo and his gun show.”

Wyatt didn’t share his partner’s enthusiasm, as he stood up and unzipped his jacket, then rested it on the back of his chair. Lucy considered for a moment introducing a rule that outdoor clothes didn’t count, but realized before she could actually do so how that would seem to the rest of them (in Flynn’s words, “a cheap excuse” to get Wyatt naked, and that was a minefield she wasn’t willing to wade back into again, even for a laugh).

“Your turn, Luce,” Wyatt said as he seated himself once more. Her roll landed her piece on a square for geography, and she winced. Not exactly her strongest subject. 

Rufus was the one to pick a card out this time, and his brief look of confusion as he read the question turned into delight. “Oh, you are _so_ not getting this one.”

“Don’t be so sure,” she fired back before nodding for him to continue.

“Which lake in Central Asia, once the fourth-largest in the world, has shrunk by 90 percent because of drought and diversion of the rivers that once fed it?”

Lucy blanched immediately. What the hell kind of a question was that?

“Toldja,” Rufus said, grinning at her expression. “Well, hotshot, which is it?”

“Uh.” She racked her brain for the answer, trying to search for clues in the question itself. Not that it helped much, as she had no idea what lakes were located in Central Asia. “The Dead Sea?” she finally said, the only body of water that came to mind, and Rufus looked absolutely thrilled as he shook his head in the negative.

“The Aral Sea,” Flynn answered before Rufus could, stealing his triumphant thunder. 

Rufus shot him an exasperated look before turning back to Lucy. “Your turn.”

Her face burning, Lucy swallowed and stood up to slip out of her cardigan. Why, exactly, had this seemed like such a good idea at the time?

“Flynn’s turn.” Rufus handed the box to Lucy as Flynn rolled the dice and moved his game piece the corresponding number of squares to finally land on the one for the entertainment category.

Something briefly passed over Flynn’s face that only Lucy managed to catch - a hint of panic - but he composed himself almost immediately and nodded for her to read the card already in her hand.

“Which international pop sensation was the drummer for the band Breakfast Club before she broke out as a solo star?”

The panicked expression didn’t return, but it looked suspiciously like the blood was now draining from Flynn’s impassive face.

“Need a hint?” Lucy asked sweetly, gaining a scowl from him and a derisive snort from Wyatt.

“Hardly.” He thought for a few more seconds, then said, softly and with great hesitation, “Olivia Newton-John?”

Lucy’s grin widened. “Madonna, actually.”

Team Wufus broke out in full-blown laughter as Flynn’s face fell.

“Well?” Lucy said expectantly, nodding for him to continue. “Hop to it.”

Flynn’s eyes stayed trained on Lucy as he stood up rigidly - if he was going to have to strip then by god he’d make it weird for them, apparently. He lifted his hands toward his shirt collar, then paused, a smile slowly forming, and instead busied his hands with unbuckling his belt.

“Oh come on, that’s gotta count as an accessory,” Wyatt protested.

Lucy didn’t respond, still focused on Flynn’s hands as he finished unbuckling the leather belt and with painful slowness drew it out of the loops on his pants. He lifted it like a triumphant kill briefly before dropping it to the floor with a clatter, and Lucy let out a small breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Things continued much the same from then on, with half of Team Wufus ending up mostly naked within an hour, and the other half finally tipsy enough that he was getting the majority of the answers wrong.

“Come on man,” Wyatt begged his tipsy partner once he was finally down to only his boxers and undershirt, while Rufus couldn’t seem to stop giggling at his side. “We were doing so well, too.”

“5’3?” Rufus finally answered (the question being _How tall was Napoleon?_ ), and Wyatt rested his head on the edge of the table and groaned.

“Want to tap out, Logan?” Flynn asked lightly, taking a swig of his fourth or fifth beer (she’d lost count at this point of whose empty bottles were whose). Wyatt scowled at him, clearly debating what would be more humiliating - giving up, or the entire team seeing him bare to the world - then sighed and nodded. Saving face it was.

“For the record, I think both of you were cheating somehow,” Wyatt muttered as he gathered up first his clothes, then his stumbling teammate. He looked over at Lucy and nodded to her. “Kick his ass, Lucy.”

Lucy looked up at him, surprised - somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that with Wyatt and Rufus out of the game, there were still enough people left between her and Flynn for someone to come out on top-

_Poor choice of words._

With only her and Flynn left seated at the table - Lucy down to a tank top and jeans, with Flynn almost as clothed as he started thanks to the loophole of considering each sock and shoe an item of clothing on its own - she shifted in her seat, uncomfortable for more reasons than one. Flynn looked back at her impassively, a challenging glint in his eye.

“Well?” he said softly, fingers steepled on the table in front of him. “Giving up, professor?”

She glared in response and reached out a hand to retrieve the dice. “Not a chance.”

The general mood in the room shifted somehow as they continued the game, neither of them getting a question wrong for long stretches of time (but both growing tipsier and tipsier as they instead had to drink). 

Finally, a question came up that Flynn didn’t answer outright, instead mulling through it while Lucy looked on. He was staring down at the table as he thought about it, allowing Lucy’s eyes to drift over the remaining clothes on his body, wondering what would go next. She was so busy imagining this she entirely missed Flynn clearing his throat to grab her attention back.

“Feeling a bit distracted, Lucy?”

“Unlikely. Well? Who was it?” The question had been one part entertainment, one part history, and she was brimming with overconfidence having looked at the answer already.

“Gene Roddenberry,” Flynn finally stated, grinning at her look of surprise. “Surprised I have a soft spot for sci-fi?”

“A little,” she admitted, ignoring how disappointed his correct answer left her feeling.

Flynn reached over to take the box of cards from her hand, and his long fingers briefly brushed along hers as she let it go. Lucy pulled her hand back quickly as if she’d been burned, but Flynn didn’t seem to notice, and she sat back and crossed her legs uncomfortably as the effects of the touch wreaked havoc on her body. She hadn’t been burned by his touch; no, rather it was quite the contrary.

“What North African stew is also the name of the dish it’s cooked in?”

Oh god. Cooking questions. Lucy chewed her lip lightly, struggling to come up with any good answers. Her mother had never opted much for cooking ‘exotic’ meals (quinoa was exotic enough to mom, let alone North African stews), and thanks to her own cooking skills, she hadn’t strayed much beyond the basics either.

“Tabbouleh?” 

The look Flynn gave her made her cross her legs tighter, and she shifted in her seat as he murmured, “Wrong.”

She was about to stand when she stopped herself. “Wait, what was the answer?”

“Tangine.”

“Tan-what? You made that up.” She held out a hand. “Let me see the card.”

Flynn flipped the card around to show her, and sure enough, _Tangine_ was printed on the back. “Quit stalling, professor.”

“I’m not-!” Lucy cut herself off with a steady breath before she could get truly flustered, and rose to her feet. She was tempted to ask sarcastically if he had any requests, but held back, knowing the smug sonuvabitch would jump at that chance if she offered it.

She was left choosing between her upper or lower halves and hesitated before deciding it was too hot in the kitchen for her jeans anyway. As she slipped the button out of the hole and dragged her zipper down, she hazarded a glance at Flynn, who...looked like his brain had stopped functioning about five seconds ago. A thought occurred to her then, something she was surprised she hadn’t realized earlier - as much as this game was having an effect on her, it was clearly having a similar effect on _him_.

That particular tidbit of information emboldened her (that and the ample alcohol she’d already consumed), and so she turned away from Flynn somewhat as she dragged the zipper the rest of the way with painful slowness. She eased the jeans down over her hips slowly and was rewarded with Flynn clearing his throat roughly.

“Something I can help you with, Garcia?” she asked softly, smiling sweetly and taking great enjoyment from the way his eyes panned down her body, drifting over the curves of her hips before he quickly forced himself to look her in the eye instead. Even that seemed to take him off guard, as Lucy knew full well that she was giving him a look she usually reserved for romantic partners.

He gathered his wits enough to finally choke out, “Are you finished yet? There’s a game to win here, you know.” His eyes betrayed what his lofty tone was trying to hide - and Flynn finally crossed his legs again and sat back in his chair, signaling a victory for her.

“Your turn,” she practically purred at him as she finally kicked her jeans off to the side and seated herself once more.

Flynn swallowed and rolled the dice, moved his piece, and finally slid the box of cards back across the table, clearly not wanting to chance having to stand to hand them to her again. Lucy resisted a smile and picked a card from the stack, watching him in her peripheral vision as she made a show of reading the question.

“Which 15th-century ruler imposed a beard tax on the populace when clean-shaven became all the rage?”

“Henry the VII.”

He answered so quickly that Lucy wasn’t sure whether or not he knew he was wrong, and she stared at the words _Peter the Great_ on the card for a few seconds before shaking her head.

Flynn’s smile disappeared immediately. Ah. So he thought he was right after all.

He sighed as he stood up, and before he could reach for his pants as well, Lucy blurted out, “Shirt.”

Her eyes widened fractionally as she realized what she’d said (quite without thinking about it), but Flynn merely tilted his head to the side slightly, looking at her with great curiosity and a hint of a smile as he instead gathered the hem of his t-shirt and tugged it up over his head.

Lucy couldn’t help but stare openly - though his skin was marked with various scars, as she had expected, it did nothing to detract from the sharp ridges of his muscles. A sparse trail of dark hair ran over his chest and disappeared above his navel, resuming just below that as it dipped beneath the waistband of his jeans. As he dropped the shirt off to the side, she could see the muscles in his shoulder flex, and briefly found herself wondering how those bare shoulders would look as he held himself above-

“I need a time out,” Lucy choked out, getting to her feet abruptly and snatching her long cardigan off the floor as she dashed for the back door. She didn’t give Flynn a chance to say anything as the screen door banged shut behind her, and she slipped her cardigan on (thankfully long enough to cover her to mid-thigh, though the cool night air on her legs was almost a blessing at that moment) and leaned against the back wall of the house with a shaky breath. Every inch of her skin felt like it was on fire and the ache in her stomach was driving her insane. 

Flynn? _Flynn_?! She knew she was pent up, she knew it had been a long time that she’d ignored her own needs (after everything with Wyatt, the thought of satiating that need with another person just felt equal parts scary and painful). 

But had she fallen so far off that horse that Garcia Flynn, of all people, was turning her on this fiercely?

She’d only just asked herself that silent question when the screen door creaked open and Flynn took a half step out, still shirtless but with the shirt in question held in one hand, clearly ready to get dressed again. 

“Lucy?” he asked, blinking out at the darkness as his eyes adjusted. 

God, he had to be so confused. “I’m here,” she responded softly, pulling her cardigan tighter around herself and running a hand through her loose hair. Flynn looked over at her immediately and was about to step the rest of the way out, but hesitated.

“Do you...want to be left alone?”

“No, it’s okay, I’m...I’m fine.” She waved for him to join her outside, and he pulled the door closed behind him, leaving them illuminated only by the light filtering out the kitchen window. In the low lighting, she couldn’t see his body quite as well as before, and that was enough for her to gather her wits somewhat.

Flynn didn’t quite seem to know what to say and so looked down at the shirt in his hands briefly before slipping an arm through one sleeve.

“What are you doing?”

He froze, looking at her with his brow furrowed. “I’m getting dressed.” A pause. “Isn’t that what you…?”

Lucy stared at him, blinking. Was that what she wanted? It certainly would make it easier for her to function, but…

“Let's go for a walk,” she said softly instead, tugging the shirt from his hands and holding it at her side.

“Like this?” He gestured at both of their general states of undress, and Lucy shrugged and nodded. 

That was apparently sufficient for him, and he fell in line beside her as they strolled across the grass toward the barn-garage. It was still dark inside, with the rest of the team no doubt already passed out in their rooms back at the house, and Lucy slipped through the small gap in the doors, not bothering to track down lights. The opposite end of the barn had both doors open somewhat, the supplies the team had picked up earlier that day stacked around that entrance, and the general area was lit up from the bright full moon she could see hanging in the sky. She made her way over to the opposite side, bypassing the Lifeboat and various cables and consoles littering the center of the space, and leaned against one of the doors to stare out into the distance. A wheat field stretched on toward the horizon, a light breeze making it sway softly - she’d always been an urban soul through and through, but at that moment she could see the appeal of a farm lifestyle.

Flynn had dutifully followed her the whole way (slowed down slightly by having more difficulty squeezing through gaps than her smaller frame), and he stood just behind her shoulder, a silent sentry watching over her as she looked out at the night sky.

“Lucy, is there-...?” he started, but went silent as she turned to him. He didn’t move as she took a step closer, nor did he flinch as she rested a hand against his abdomen, tracing her fingers down a particularly nasty scar there.

Both arms dropped to her sides, and her cardigan fell open once more. Her burgundy underwear wasn’t particularly sexy, just basic colored cotton, but she still heard Flynn take a sharp breath as his eyes drifted down over her body.

Not quite sure what to say to get out the thoughts running through her mind, Lucy instead shrugged her cardigan off, shivering as she then stood in just her tank top and underwear. She looked up at Flynn intently - the ball was in his court, and she wouldn’t do anything further - but a small part of her felt like she had this all wrong, and as Flynn stared at her she felt the urge to retrieve her sweater and run back to the house immediately.

But then he took a half step closer to her. She waited, silent and still, as he lifted a hand and trailed the back of his fingers down her arm. She shivered at the touch but kept her eyes trained on his face as Flynn moved his hand from her arm up to her chin. He tilted her face up gently and brushed his thumb softly against her lower lip. It was soft, and tender, and wholly unexpected from the man she’d spent so long running away from in terror.

But then Flynn took a step back, his hands dropping as well. “We’ve clearly had a bit too much to drink, hmm?” He sounded nervous, unsure of himself, but she could hear something behind it as well. He was struggling to restrain himself as much as she was.

_Oh, to hell with it._

Lucy pushed Flynn back roughly, making him stumble, thanks moreso to surprise than to her brute strength (or lack thereof). He was pinned between her and the barn door, and Lucy paused a moment, giving him the time to stop this if he chose to, to slip away and head back to the house and pretend it had never happened.

But he didn’t.

Lucy closed the distance between them and ran her hands up over his still-bare chest and shoulders until they came to rest against the back of his neck. His skin was cold from the chilly night, and her warm palms left a trail of goosebumps wherever she touched him. She could feel the rapid beat of his pulse against her wrist, could hear the hitch in his breath as she twined her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck that was just slightly longer than usual. He smelled of something familiar, like a memory she’d forgotten in every way except for the heady scent of his aftershave.

Rising up onto her tiptoes, Lucy leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. There was no hesitation from either of them, no shyness in the kiss, Lucy instead arching her body against Flynn’s as his arms wrapped around her back and waist, as he leaned down further to return the kiss with equal hunger and desperation. It was so intense that she was taken aback for a moment, and then a memory flooded to mind, a night that seemed so long ago now, where she’d wailed in pain and he’d simply held her against him, his forehead pressed to hers, rocking her until she’d calmed.

Just as quickly as she’d initiated it, Lucy pulled away from Flynn, wiping her mouth and retrieving her cardigan from where she dropped it. As much as the butterflies in her stomach were protesting the decision, she knew it wasn’t the right time for this - she didn’t want it to be a drunken mistake that both were keen to forget.

“Sorry,” she said softly, pulling her sweater on again. She avoided Flynn’s eyes for a moment before looking at him, and rather than the confusion she expected, he simply looked….calm? Happy, even?

“Nothing to be sorry about, Lucy.” He took the lapels of her sweater in each hand and wrapped it around her tighter so she was fully covered and warm.

She smiled, grateful for his calm reassurances, but felt a burn in her cheeks as the wind blew against her legs, giving her an abrupt chill. “Maybe we should head back inside.”

“Maybe.”

The stroll back up to the house should have been awkward, Lucy in her underwear and Flynn still shirtless, but a smile kept creeping back onto her face, and eventually she slipped her arm through his as they walked.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not hating me after…” She gestured vaguely back to the barn. “...that.”

“Why would I hate you?” They drew to a stop outside the back door and Flynn faced her, tugging his shirt back over his head to cover himself. “It was just a drunken kiss, Lucy.”

Was that all it was? There was a chance it was, in fact, and she was taking the whole thing wrong. Maybe Flynn didn’t feel toward her the way that she thought...then again, she had to admit, their kiss had been _hot_. If he truly didn’t feel anything for her, would he really have been that wrapped up in their shared moment?

“Coming?” He was waiting with the door held open for her, and Lucy quickly rushed into the house, retrieving her pants from where she’d abandoned them next to the kitchen table. The house was silent, all the other occupants clearly having fallen asleep ages ago, and the noise of Flynn tidying the empty bottles from the table felt almost deafening. She retrieved a bag and held it open so he could deposit them somewhere, and Flynn gave her a grateful smile in thanks.

Once the kitchen was returned to its pre-game night state, they turned back to one another, both still clearly bundles of nerves.

“Guess we should go to bed.”

“Guess so.”

“Well...goodnight, then.”

“Lucy, wait.”

Lucy was about to exit to the living room when Flynn’s voice stopped her, and she turned back to face him, the nerves in her stomach flaring again. “Yes?”

The smile he gave her then was almost enough to make her weak in the knees - no sass, no smugness, just a warmth that lit up his face in a way she hadn’t seen before. “Who won?”

She couldn’t help returning his smile. “By my count, it was a draw.” She looked down at the floor demurely, twisting a lock of hair around one finger. “I guess we’ll need to have a tie-breaker night sometime.”

On that heady note, she turned and made her way for the stairs, but was thankfully still in earshot to hear the long breath Flynn let out once she left the room. She’d probably need to wait a few days for the memory of the group’s hangovers to pass before she pitched another game night, but somehow she knew Flynn would be up for it regardless. And, she was forced to admit, she herself looked forward to their rematch, in no small part thanks to that shared moment in the barn. Laying alone in bed, she cursed her own second-guessing nature that she’d not kept going, and a daydream of how things could have gone was enough to send her into a restful sleep, with dreams that would haunt her gloriously into the next morning.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this while reading "The Only Way Out", hence the setting being a farmhouse post-bunker; many thanks to Sally for the inspiration.
> 
> I considered having them go further in the barn, then decided neither would really want to end up the other's drunken mistake despite their mutual interest. Unfortunately, that meant I was left waffling for several months over how to end it. Then I got fed up with it sitting there unfinished and decided to do a Covid Cleanup(TM) of my WIPs and here we are.


End file.
